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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27673247">Always and Forever</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinstripedJackalope/pseuds/pinstripedJackalope'>pinstripedJackalope</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bets &amp; Wagers, Fluff, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Immortality, M/M, Nicky is sick, Post-Canon, Romantic Fluff, Sick Character, Sickfic, Vomiting, because it's nicky/joe, because what else are you gonna do when you're immortal?, i don't make the rules, this is probably the fluffiest thing I've ever written</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:54:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,359</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27673247</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinstripedJackalope/pseuds/pinstripedJackalope</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Joe, love, you’re going to want to let go of me.”</p><p>“Why?” </p><p>“Because if you don’t I am going to throw up all over your sheets.”</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Aka a small post-canon Nicky sickfic wherein Nicky and Joe are hopelessly sweet on each other.</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>377</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Always and Forever</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi!  I'm dipping my toes in with this one.  Not sure I have their characterization down but I crave sickfics so I wrote one.  Hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They’re spending a night in Brazil, laying low in a small house in a large city after a job well done, when Joe wakes with a jolt. </p><p>He’s not sure what woke him, at first.  Everything is quiet, the sound of traffic distant, the room still in total darkness.  All the same Joe is awake, moving on instinct to hold Nicky closer, his other hand reaching for the handgun that rests under his pillow as he assesses the situation.  Then Nicky grunts, squirming, and it takes but a moment for Joe to realize that they’re still alone, still safe, it’s just Nicky moving that woke him up. </p><p>Nicky, who should still be very much asleep at this hour.</p><p>“Nicky?  Hey, shhh, it’s okay,” Joe says, half-slurred, his tongue sluggish from sleep.  He curls the arm wrapped around Nicky’s waist a tad tighter, holding him close.  It’s not the first time Joe has woken to Nicky in distress, caught in a restless sleep haunted by nine hundred years of tragedies past.  Not the first time, far from the last—he knows how it goes. </p><p>Nicky, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo.  He huffs, a sound steeped in amusement, pushing up on his elbows and trying to sit up straight despite Joe’s grip.  The motion of his chest is slow and easy, the sound of his breath even. </p><p>That’s… odd.  Nicky is much too awake, much too calm, to be caught in a nightmare.  Joe frowns, confused.  Then he frowns harder as Nicky says, “Joe, love, you’re going to want to let go of me.”</p><p>“Why?” Joe asks, resisting the urge to tighten his grip even more.  He glares into the darkness, blinking hard so as to wake himself fully, to make Nicky’s silhouette come clear.</p><p>Nicky huffs again, this time sounding slightly strained though no less amused.  “Because if you don’t I am going to throw up all over your sheets.”</p><p>The words take a second to process.  Then Joe is letting go, throwing away the blankets and freeing his love from the confines of their bed.</p><p>Not a moment too soon.  Nicky is up in an instant, darting through the darkness for the bathroom.  He doesn’t turn on the light, just lunges right on past, straight for the toilet, moving on instinct. </p><p>He barely makes it in time.</p><p>Joe winces, reaching for the lamp beside the bed as Nicky empties his stomach.  The light flickers twice before coming on, a dusty orange cutting through the darkness.  Joe pushes aside the blankets from his own legs, as well, standing up just as Andy comes barging into the room, gun raised.</p><p>“I heard movement, is everyone—”</p><p>She pauses, her eyes going wide as she catches the sounds that Nicky is making.  The gun falls and she leans back against the wall by the door, pursing her lips. </p><p>“Food poisoning, you think?” she asks.  “It’s not a panic attack, is it?”</p><p>Joe shakes his head, walking past her to fetch a glass from the tiny kitchen.  “Not sure yet,” he says.  “Not a panic attack, but it came on kind of sudden.”  He fills the glass with water, runs a towel under the faucet, and then turns back to the bathroom, leaning inside and turning on that light, too.  “Love, you still with me?”</p><p>Nicky spits into the bowl, nodding.  “Definitely not a panic attack,” he agrees, and reaches thankfully for the glass of water.  He swishes a sip around in his mouth as Joe pads in behind him.  Joe kneels down and begins to run the wet towel over the sweat that has beaded on Nicky’s forehead and cheeks.  After Nicky spits again, he tugs the flush, letting Nicky sit back as his dinner goes down the drain.</p><p>Andy hums, tapping the gun against her thigh.  She stares, stony, at the far wall as Joe settles on his haunches beside Nicky, stroking his sweat damp hair back from his face.  “You weren’t feeling like this when we went to bed,” he says, more to double-check than because he doesn’t know the answer.  He’s almost certain he would have noticed if Nicky was feeling off, even if Nicky didn’t realize it himself.</p><p>Nicky shakes his head.  “It wasn’t until it woke me up that I felt it,” he says.  His face is pale, his lips twitching into a strange little self-deprecating smile.  As if he should have known, should have realized.</p><p>“What am I going to do with you?” Joe sighs, leaning in until he can touch his forehead to Nicky’s temple.  He frowns as their skin makes contact. </p><p>“What is it?” Andy asks. </p><p>“He’s very warm,” Joe says, straightening up and pressing the back of his hand to Nicky’s forehead.  “Do we have a thermometer anywhere around?”</p><p>“I’ll send Nile out to get one,” Andy says, backing out of the doorway.</p><p>Joe nods.  Then he hums, flopping down onto his ass beside Nicky and scooting around until he’s facing his love.  “Still feeling sick?” he asks, refolding the towel so that he can press the cool fabric against Nicky’s neck.</p><p>Nicky hums.  “It’s not bad,” he says.  He hasn’t actually drank any of the water, a hesitance that Joe takes to mean that he’s worried about it coming back up. </p><p>That’s certainly not promising.  “Istanbul sick or Vienna sick?” Joe asks.</p><p>“Not Vienna sick,” Nicky says, and pulls a face.  Joe nods, relief making his shoulders sag just slightly.  Vienna—god.  Vienna was <em>bad</em>. </p><p>He remembers it so clearly, to this day.  It was still very early on in their relationship, still during what Joe considers his first natural lifespan, at a point when it would have been somewhat plausible for them to still be living mortal lives if they hadn’t died so many times already.  They were nearing eighty, the two of them alone with only each other, the knife-sharp edges of their troubled past having been sanded down just enough so that it would not cut <em>quite</em> so readily.</p><p>It wasn’t the most memorable mission they’ve ever taken.  They were there to aid in an effort to topple some corrupt politician, one whose name Joe cannot recall anymore.  They were doing what they always did—fighting, this time side by side rather than against each other—when Nicky got sick. </p><p>Nicky’s blood, Joe had seen.  His guts and gore, too.  He’d chopped off part of Nicky’s thumb once, and watched it reattach itself in frustrated wonder.  He had demanded why this crusader would not succumb to his injuries, why they were both to be locked in this stalemate, neither able to die and neither able to kill, forever.  He had been angry, scared, confused… and then he’d fallen in love.  And just when he’d accepted that this was how it would be, the two of them together forever in this strange immortal dance, Nicky came down with a fever so bad that Joe felt helpless in the face of it, helpless to watch as Nicky struggled to keep water down and talked to people who weren’t there and eventually began to have fits, convulsions, that terrified Joe down to his bones.  Because he knew Nicky could survive blood loss.  He could survive being gutted, gored, gouged apart—but this?  This fever, this illness, that burned him up from the inside out?  God. </p><p>Joe had never been so afraid of losing someone as he was during those long, long nights.</p><p>Nicky died of that illness, that fever, seven days after he fell ill.  They were in a basement of an abandoned mill outside the city limits, and Joe sat with him, stroking the damp hair back from his face, for the eleven entire minutes it took for his body to heal and for him to come back.  Every tick of the clock… it was like a sword, twisting in his gut.  But he waited, he did, and soon enough Nicky came back to him.  He hugged Nicky to his chest and he swore that day that he would never, ever let go.</p><p>…If he never sees Nicky’s face pale to that sickly gray-white ever again, it will be too soon.</p><p>“Not Vienna,” Nicky says again, and Joe starts, realizing that he was lost to his memories for a moment.  He raises his eyes and presses his hand to Nicky’s clammy cheek, stroking the fever blush on his skin.</p><p>“Not Vienna,” he agrees.  “Never again.”</p><p>They stay like that for a long moment, reveling in the closeness of each other, before there’s a knock at the open bathroom door.</p><p>Nicky looks up, tilting his head to the side so that Joe’s hand doesn’t leave his cheek.  “Hello, Nile,” he says, conversationally.  “Is all that for me?”</p><p>Nile nods, gesturing with her full hands.  She has Joe’s gun, both their phones, and a blanket, as well as a bottle of pink medicine and a steaming mug.  She hands most of it to Joe before holding out the mug so that Nicky can take it by the handle.  “Ginger tea,” she says.  “Got it from the corner store, as well as… where did I… ah.  Here.”</p><p>Joe finishes wrapping the blanket around Nicky’s shoulders and takes the thermometer she pulls from her jacket’s inside pocket, blinking at the instructions written in Portugese on the box.  Not one of his stronger languages, he’ll admit, but he can get by.  He hums, fiddling with the buttons until he has it ready, then turns back to Nicky.</p><p>“Say <em>ah</em>,” he says.  Nicky rolls his eyes but opens his mouth all the same, allowing Joe to slot the thermometer under his tongue.  They wait a moment in comfortable silence before there’s a beep and Joe pries it free, giving Nicky a little smack on the shoulder to let him know how he feels about Nicky biting down and making things difficult.</p><p>“What do you think, better or worse than Istanbul?” Nicky asks, flicking his eyes up to Nile.</p><p>“What happened in Istanbul?” Nile asks.</p><p>Joe tuts.  “Food poisoning.  Took him out for three days straight.  I’ve never seen so many bodily fluids in my goddamn life.”</p><p>“…You kill people for a living,” Nile says, unimpressed.</p><p>“Yeah, so you understand the metric of exactly how many bodily fluids I’m talking here,” Joe says, and fake-shudders. </p><p>Nicky rolls his eyes, but there’s a smile playing on his lips.  “I bet you three hundred <em>real</em> that it’s still not as bad as Istanbul.”</p><p>“You’re betting… on your own illness?” Nile asks, raising an eyebrow. </p><p>Nicky shrugs.  “It’s as good as anything to bet on, is it not?”</p><p>Nile frowns for a moment.  Then she shakes her head, giving in and crouching down beside the two of them.  “Tell me about Istanbul so I can make an informed bet,” she sighs.</p><p>Joe and Nicky exchange a look.  Then, grinning at each other, they do exactly that. </p><p>The story takes a good few minutes to tell, during which Joe nudges the tea up toward Nicky’s lips, watching closely as Nicky wrinkles his nose at it.  He manages to get down a few sips, though—a good sign.  Joe feels vindicated in his assumption that it’s a twelve-hour bug and Nicky is going to be fine come morning, though not before puking up his guts at least twice more.  Nicky, meanwhile, insists that he’s not going to throw up again, that it’s out of his system, and Nile has decided on a more conservative estimate of a twenty-four hour bug.</p><p>Money placed and bets made, they check the thermometer.  Joe breathes out.  “Just thirty-eight point three,” he says.</p><p>“Which is… what?” Nile asks.</p><p>Joe frowns in confusion, but Nicky is already tugging his phone over, punching the numbers into a converter.  “One-oh-one Fahrenheit,” he says.  “It’s not high.  Still below Istanbul.”</p><p>Nile shakes her head, as if she still thinks them barbaric—which, lets be clear, they very much are, but not for this reason—and leans over to push Nicky’s tea toward him again.  Then the three of them sit companionably, chatting away until Andy comes back from a perimeter check and makes four. </p><p>It’s nice, honestly.  If it weren’t for the fact that it’s dead o’clock at night and they’re sitting vomit vigil in the bathroom it would be like nothing is wrong, like it’s just another day spent chilling between missions.  Nicky jokes around, pushing through, his dry wit on full display as Joe shifts again, sitting himself so he can rest his hand comfortingly on Nicky’s back.  They talk for a good while, the tea seeming to settle Nicky’s stomach.</p><p>And then Nicky goes quiet.</p><p>Joe keeps talking, rubbing a hand up Nicky’s rigid blanket-clad back as he does.  Nicky is too still, his jaw clenched.  Joe knows pain when he sees it on Nicky’s face, and that, friends, is definitely pain.  Nicky swallows, hard, and presses a fist against his stomach, breathing through it. </p><p>“You doing alright, Nicky?” Nile asks a moment later, when he can’t quite manage to breathe and instead lets out a short hiss.</p><p>“’S just cramps,” Nicky answers, but his face has gone pale and clammy again, like all the blood has flushed out of it.  Joe presses a hand to Nicky’s spine and counts down from three—two—one—<em>and</em>—</p><p>Nicky lurches for the toilet, one hand knotted in the fabric of his t-shirt in front of his stomach. </p><p>Joe rolls his eyes.  So much for ‘out of his system’.</p><p>This bout is less productive than the last.  After heaving up the tea Nicky doesn’t have much more to bring up, leaving him retching long past the point where his stomach is empty.  When he’s finally done he groans, slumps, and mutters something in Arabic that Joe doesn’t catch but knows is probably him trying to reassure Joe that he’s okay and missing the mark by approximately a mile.  He shudders, pushing shakily away from the toilet.</p><p>“Easy,” Joe says, leaning Nicky back until he’s slumped against the wall.  “Still with me?”</p><p>Nicky nods, scrubbing tears that have accumulated from the force of retching from his eyes.  “Still here,” he says.  He blinks, hard, and reaches a hand out to Joe.</p><p>Joe takes it between his own two hands, pressing against either side of it and holding it tight.  “Good,” he says.  Then Nile clears her throat, saying something about trying some Pepto and fiddling around with the bottle of medicine.  She pops it open and has some poured out into the little cup before she squints suddenly, pausing.</p><p>“Uh… medicine works on us, right?” she asks.</p><p>Andy snorts.  Joe laughs outright.  Nicky smiles but nods, gesturing for the cup.  “Drugs and medicine work on us, yes,” he says.  “Though usually not as long or as well.”</p><p>“I see,” Nile says.  “I wasn’t sure if we could get sick, either, but here you are.  That must suck—how many times do you think you’ve been sick in nine hundred years?”</p><p>Joe laughs again, but Nicky seems to be actually contemplating the question as he leans forward to take his medicine like a shot.  He doesn’t settle back against the wall when he’s done, instead hovering a little closer to the toilet.  “You know, I’m not sure?” he says.  “It’s been many.  We heal fast but the healing does not always stop infectious disease.  And the diseases change so much over the years, they’re almost impossible to avoid, so…”</p><p>Joe nods along, watching Nicky’s face closely.  “The medicine going to stay down?” he asks.</p><p>Nicky shrugs a shoulder, giving him another of those self-deprecating smiles.  Like it’s his fault that he’s sick, like he has any control over this whatsoever.  Joe shakes his head, wrapping his arm around Nicky’s waist and pulling him in for a hug.  Nicky rests his head on Joe’s shoulder, just breathing, for a long moment.</p><p>The bathroom is silent for a little while after that.  Andy is doing the thing where she’s half awake half asleep with her eyes partly open, and Nile is frowning at her as if she’s trying to tell how awake she is.  Joe holds Nicky and Nicky leans into Joe.  There is a space, a gap, where two people should have been… but it’s fine, because four is good enough.  Not perfect, never perfect, but <em>good enough</em>.</p><p>Until Nicky suddenly goes rigid, squeezing his eyes tightly shut.  A moment later he pushes aside the blanket to press his fingers to his mouth.  He hums, trying to breathe through it, but Joe can tell it isn’t helping.  “Up we go,” he says, patting Nicky on the hip and easing him forward.</p><p>Nicky groans, just loud enough for Joe to hear.  “Not feeling good,” he says, hovering over the toilet.</p><p>“I know, love,” Joe says, stroking Nicky’s hair back.  He’s still too warm, the fever far from breaking as more sweat beads on his skin.  He’s going to dehydrate at this rate. </p><p>Nicky shivers.  Then his back arches, the medicine coming back up.</p><p>It’s over quickly, thank god.  A few dry heaves and then Nicky is resting his forehead against the edge of the toilet bowl, breathing deeply.  Joe leans around him, offering the water so he can clean out his mouth a little.  He doesn’t offer the tea again, knowing that Nicky would just shake his head.</p><p>After swishing some water around his mouth and spitting it out, Nicky pushes away from the toilet once more.  This time, instead of leaning back against the wall, he turns to Joe and buries his warm face in the crook of Joe’s neck, snaking his arms around Joe’s waist.  Joe wraps him up in an embrace, rubbing his back in long, soothing strokes.  “You must be done for a bit now,” he says.  “Why don’t we find you a bucket so you can go back to bed, hm?”</p><p>“Don’t want to move,” Nicky responds, burying in closer.</p><p>“Fair,” Nile says, and yawns, herself.  “These tiles are starting to look pretty comfy.”</p><p>Joe smiles, shaking his head.  “Go back to bed, Nile.  Take Andy with you.”</p><p>“Will you two be okay?” she asks, looking pointedly at Nicky.</p><p>Nicky hums.  “We survived Istanbul, we’ll survive this,” he says.  Then he smiles against Joe’s skin, his arms tightening.  “Together, hm?”</p><p>“Always together,” Joe says, rocking him slightly.</p><p>So Nile gets up, coaxing Andy to her feet so they can go back to bed, yawning all the way.  Joe continues rocking Nicky, holding him.  The darkness stays at the edges of their vision, held at bay by the lights overhead.  The house remains still, quiet except for distant traffic.  It’s… good.  As good as life can be when Nicky is sick and hurting.  But the sickness won’t last forever, and neither will the hurt, and thus Joe knows that they will be okay. </p><p>It isn’t long after that when Nicky starts to drift off, his head lolling a little as he struggles to stay awake.  His arms go slack before he’s humming and raising them again, holding on tighter.  Joe’s heart softens even more in his chest.  Nicky is fighting it, and hard, but soon enough he’s going to succumb.  Joe shakes his head, carding his fingers through Nicky’s hair and drawing his attention.  “Still with me?” he asks.</p><p>“Not for much longer,” Nicky says, voice low and sleepy.  “I’m tapping out.”</p><p>“Okay, love.  You rest now.”  Joe presses a kiss to Nicky’s forehead before letting go to arrange him on the bathroom floor, resting Nicky’s head in his lap.  Nicky hums as Joe strokes his hair, soothing him to sleep and knowing as he does that his dearest love will feel better in the morning.  Because he will, of course he will, Joe has spent a millennium with this man and he knows him inside and out.  He’s winning this bet, you just wait and see. </p><p>Nicky breathes out, his hand resting on Joe’s knee, and Joe strokes his knuckles down Nicky’s shoulder.  He’s here.  He’s here, and he’s never letting go.  He’ll hold on until the very end of the world itself.</p><p>Always and forever.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Cheers!</p><p>Edit: changed the spanish to portugese because someone pointed out that was wrong.  I was going off of what my search engine said wikipedia said was spoken in Brazil, rip.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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